Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 02 - Sudden(1933) (14 page)

 
          
At
this moment Sudden stepped from the house on to the verandah and paused when he
saw that his employer had visitors. Purdie presented his new foreman as such,
and a little frown creased the brow of King Burdette.

 
          
“Yu
didn’t tell me yu was takin’ charge here when I offered yu a job,” he said.

 
          
“Did
I have to?” the puncher asked coolly.

 
          
“What
was yu sayin’ this mornin’ ‘bout some steers yu found, Green?” the rancher cut
in.

 
          
The
foreman told of the re-branded cattle he had discovered hidden on the range,
and the face of the Circle B man flamed as he heard the story.

 
          
“Yu
accusin’ me o’ rustlin’ yore cows?” he asked stormily. “What’s the great idea?”

 
          
“Well,
when the brands are healed the cattle could be sneaked over an’ thrown into
yore herds, or they could be found where they are, when it would look like we’d
been stealin’ from yu,” Sudden pointed out. “On’y yore outfit would be
interested in puttin’ yore brand on our beasts.”

 
          
“Bah!
Chicken-feed,” King sneered. He turned to the marshal. “Looks to me like a
plain frame-up—tryin’ to pin a rustlin’ on the Circle B.”

 
          
“Shore
does,” the officer agreed.

 
          
“See
here, Purdie,” King went on. “It’s the first I’ve heard of this, but I’ll look
into it, an’ if I find any o’ my outfit have been usin’ a straight iron I’ll
hand ‘em over to yu, even if it’s my own brothers.
Can’t say
fairer than that.
Now all this chatter ain’t gettin’ us
nowhere
. I’m offerin’ yu my hand; will yu take it?”

 
          
The
rancher’s jaw was set, his eyes cold. “I’d sooner shake with a rattlesnake than
a Burdette,” he said harshly. “Fetch me the murderer o’ my son, with a rope
round his neck, an’ mebbe I’ll tell yu different.”

 
          
Burdette
looked at the marshal, and Sudden could have sworn there was satisfaction in
the glance; the man had hoped for such a termination to the interview. He stood
up, lifting his shoulders in a gesture of hopelessness.

 
          
“Yu
heard that, Sam?” he said, and there was little of disappointment in his tone.
“Good thing yu happened along; yu can bear witness that I did my utmost to
dodge trouble, but this old fool wants war. Well, by God, he shall have it, an’
that goes.”

 
          
The
exultation in the savage, sneering voice was plain enough now; the man had cast
off all pretence.

 
          
Purdie
too had
risen
, his hand not far from his gun. He
laughed scornfully. “Yu can’t bluff me, Burdette,” he said. “Mebbe I’m what yu
called me, but I ain’t blind. Yu egg yore brother on to kill Kit, an’ yu stand
aside an’ let him bear the blame; yu brand my cattle an’ leave ‘em where
they’ll be found so’s I’ll start somethin’. Then yu come here with lying offers
o’ peace which yu know damn well I don’t listen to o’ purpose to put me in
wrong with the town.”

 
          
“Lookit,
Purdie…” the marshal protested.

 
          
“Shut
yore trap,” the old man told him, and to Burdette, “Get off my land, pronto,
an’ take yore tame dawg with yu.”

 
          
Sudden
saw the man’s face whiten under the tan, sensed the passion that was urging him
to pull his gun and shoot Purdie then and there, and realized that only his own
presence prevented it. For a brief moment Burdette fought his fury, and then
came an ugly snarl: “Yu take the pot—this time, but I’ll get yu, yore ranch,
an’ yore girl, Purdie, even if yu pack yore place with two-gunmen.”

 
          
With
a glare at Sudden he swaggered from the verandah, sprang into the saddle, and
spurred his horse down the trail. The marshal would have spoken, but a
contemptuous gesture from the cattleman stopped him.

 
          
“Get
agoin’,” Purdie said. “Yore master will be whistlin’ for yu.”

 
          
When
the pair had vanished, the ranch-owner turned and looked at his foreman. “What
yu think of it?” he asked.

 
          
“I
reckon yu got their measure,” was the reply. “Funny ‘bout them cattle, though;
I don’t believe he knowed of ‘em.”

 
          
Purdie
laughed incredulously. “When yu savvy the Burdettes as well as I do, yu’ll
figure ‘em at the back o’ most o’ the dirty work around here,” he said.
“Anyways, they know what I think of ‘em. King would ‘a’ drawed on me if yu
hadn’t been here.”

 
          
The
puncher’s eyes twinkled. “Yeah, but I was, an’ not bein’ a fool, he didn’t
forget it,” he replied.

 
          
“What
d’yu guess’ll be their first move?”

 
          
“I
expect they’ll try to abolish that two-gun hombre King mentioned.”

 
          
The
rancher’s face grew grave. “Jim, I’d no right to rope yu into my trouble—this
ain’t no ordinary foreman’s job,” he said. “If yu wanta reconsider…”

 
          
“Forget
it, seh,” Sudden smiled. “I came here knowin’, an’ when I start anythin’ I aim
to finish it.”

 
          
Purdie’s
relief was evident. In declaring war on the Circle B he had relied greatly upon
the aid of this lean-jawed, level-eyed stranger, of whom he knew nothing and
yet trusted implicitly.

 
          
IN
the big, littered living-room at the Circle B that same evening four men sat in
conference—King Burdette, his brothers Mart and Sim, and one of their outfit.
This last had an arresting appearance. Between thirty-five and forty years of
age, of slight build, he had one remarkable feature —a skin, which even the
fierce sun of the South-west could not colour; his clean-shaven face was white,
the unhealthy, sickly white of something grown in darkness, and in this deathly
pallor were set blue eyes like polished stones, un-winking, expressionless.

 
          
“Whitey”—for
so the man was known—never smiled, his face might have been a marble mask, but
lacked the dignity of the carven stone. He wore two guns, and his long,
talon-like fingers were never far from their butts.

 
          
“Well,
boys, I saw Purdie this mornin’ an’—like I guessed—he’s all set for
war—wouldn’t listen to nothin’ else,” King began, and grinned. “Slippery was
there, by chance, o’ course. That puts us right with Windy; Chris won’t get
no
sympathy there. So we can go ahead.”

 
          
“An’
with Kit outa the way there shouldn’t be no difficulty,” Mart added.

 
          
“There’s
on’y one, far’s I can see,” King rejoined. “Purdie has scooped in that two-gun
stranger, Green, an’ made him foreman. I’m tellin’ yu this; he’s got a good
one.”

 
          
“We
oughta’ve gathered him in ourselves,” Sim stated.

 
          
“I
tried to, but Purdie had
beat
me to it,” the elder
brother told him. “Mark me, that fella means trouble for us; twice he’s got
Luce out of a jam—if it hadn’t been for him that young fool would ‘a’ been off
our hands for good. There’s another thing; he claims to have found a bunch o’
cattle with the C P brand changed to Circle B, penned up on Purdie’s range. Any
o’ yu know about it?”

 
          
They
all shook their heads. “Odd number that,” Mart said. “Our boys wouldn’t do it
without orders. An’ why leave ‘em there?”

 
          
“It’ll
need lookin’ into, but can wait.” King decided. “The main point is what we
goin’ to do about Green?”

 
          
“Leave
him to me,” Whitey said.

 
          
Callous
as they were, the cold, passionless voice sent a shiver through the others;
they sensed an eagerness to slay for the sake of slaying—for they knew his
proposal meant nothing less than death. Whitey was a killer of the worst
type—one who sold his dexterity to the highest bidder, and regarded the taking
of human life as no more important than twisting the neck of a chicken.

 
          
“He
totes a coupla guns an’ we don’t know how good he is with ‘em,” King observed.

 
          
“If
he can beat me to the draw he’ll do what twelve other fellas failed at,” the
killer replied darkly.

 
          
“Thirteen’s
an unlucky number, Whitey,” Sim commented.

 
          
“Shore
will be—for him,”
came
the grim retort. “I’ll be in
town to-night; mebbe meet up with him.”

 
          
King
shook his head. “We gotta wait a week at least,” he decided. “To do it sooner
would be a fair giveaway.”

 
          
“Well,
what’s a week, anyways?” the gunman grimaced. “He’ll be a long whiles dead.
It’ll cost yu boys five hundred.”

 
          
The
“boys” nodded agreement, regarding him curiously. They had no illusions about
the man, being well aware that he would have undertaken to destroy any one of
them for a sufficient sum.

 
          
“Yo’re
a cold-blooded devil, Whitey,” Mart said. “One o’ these days yu’ll tumble up
against a fella who’s a mite quicker’n yu are, an’ then…”

 
          
The
killer’s thin, pale lips twisted a little, which, in him, signified amusement.
“I’ve met that fella,” he said. “Yes, sir, some years ago, way down in Texas.
He warn’t much more’n a boy, but his draw was a shinin’ merricle. I was
reckoned fast, but he left me standin’ still. Had an odd trick o’ speaking his
piece, half turnin’ away, an’ the next yu knowed he had yu covered.”

 
          
“He
let yu off, Whitey?” King queried, with lifted eyebrows.

 
          
“He
let me off, yeah, when he had me set,” the gunman said. “I’ll never forgive him
for that.” In his voice was a bitter hate for the man who had allowed him to
live. “Said I looked sick, an’ I’ll bet I did too, an’ that a spell o’ travel
would be good for my health.”

 
          
“So
yu—travelled?” King said, with almost a jeer.

 
          
The
other appeared not to notice it. “I took the trail,” he admitted. “I ain’t seen
him since, an’ dunno as I’d reckernize him—a few years make a big difference in
a young chap, an’ there warn’t nothin’ special ‘bout him —just a ordinary
puncher to look at. But I’ve heard tell of him.”

 
          
“What
was his name?” Sim asked.

 
          
“Never
knowed it, but they was beginnin’ to call him `Sudden’ down there, an’, by God!
they
got him right,” Whitey replied.

 
          
Sudden!
Even to this far corner of Arizona the young gunman’s reputation for cold
courage and marvellous marksmanship had penetrated. The faint satirical smiles
which their companion’s recital of his discomfiture had produced faded from the
faces of his hearers. Mart expressed the feelings of all when, with a low
whistle, he
said :

 
          
“Sudden.
Huh? Whitey, I reckon yu did right to—travel.”

 
          
Despite
the fact that matters between the two ranches had apparently reached a crisis,
a week passed without anything happening, and Windy wondered. Old-timers wagged
their heads significantly and spoke of the proverbial calm before the storm.
For Luce Burdette the period was one of growing discomfort. The attitude of his
family, supported by the known facts, caused many to believe he had slain Kit
Purdie, and though Sudden’s quick-wittedness should have cleared him, in the
minds of reasonable men, of robbing Evans, there were some who still doubted.
Also, King Burdette had made it plain that friendship with his discarded
brother would mean enmity with him, and the displeasure of the Circle B, with
its band of hard, unscrupulous riders, was not to be incurred lightly.